Daniel Albrigo: Neither "Bootleg" Nor "Basic"
Interview: Nick Ace Images: Courtesy Daniel Albrigo and Muddguts
Simultaneously recognized in the tattoo and contemporary art worlds, NYC based Daniel Albrigo is a true master. While devoting his life to two separate crafts, Albrigo maintains a particularly unassuming demeanor despite global showings and a recent collaboration with Genesis Breyer P-Orridge at the Warhol Museum.
We recently caught up at his Brooklyn Studio to discuss alternate dimensions, tribals, and his obsession with ducks.
The last time we interviewed, we spoke about paintings of prosthetics (above), the “happy face” series and CeeLo Green. And just last month, we saw each other at your solo show in Brooklyn. Why don’t you tell me about how we got from that time to now.
The biggest thing that’s happened was Brook [Albrigo] and I, we went to Mexico, and as much as I tried to stay on vacation, I ended up painting just about every day. At the end of the month, I had 32 paintings. I emailed a couple of places about showing the work and Gallery Muddguts in Brooklyn reached out to say they were interested.
I started painting new work and was inspired by traveling—all of the bright colors and the folk style of the ice cream trucks in Mexico, and the hand painted building signs—how it’s a recognizable cartoon character, but it’s really fucked up and super wonky, like Donald Duck with a huge long bill. Muddguts reached out to me and they said they had an opening at the end of May. They said they knew it was short time. It was 3 weeks notice, and I had 30 paintings ready to go that I did after I was in Mexico. I sent them to the framer and we just had the opening on the 23rd.
In regards to the ducks, I see your inspiration from the ice cream trucks; I’m a huge fan of bootleg t-shirts, anything like that…
Bootleg Bart.
I had a Bootleg Bart shirt from Pisa in Italy and it was him pushing the tower straight. I gave it to this girl that I’ve known my whole life. Maybe I shouldn’t have given it away. I don’t know…
Anyhow, beyond the bootlegs, there’s another element to your work I want to touch on. I’ll give you an example. We recently caught up with Deborah Sussman, who worked for the Eames and who famously went onto design the ‘84 LA Olympics with no budget—what that would look like, what the sets would look like…. In our interview, Sussman frequently referenced indigenous culture.
The colors, the shapes, the patterns—you see it in her work. Of course I could spot the bootleg reference when I went to the gallery the other night, but the colors and textures you are referencing are also very well considered.
Part of the influence too was just searching on YouTube. I came across a couple of documentaries of Jasper Johns in the studio working on some prints. He used this psychological drawing that I believe is credited to Joseph Jastrow. It’s a drawing of a duck and a rabbit. You look at it one way and some people immediately see a rabbit. Some people immediately see a duck. That’s a precarious composition. It looks like a rabbit looking forward or a duck looking up towards the sky.
The last couple of times I painted, I was just working from photo reference. When it came to drawing things out of my head or painting things out of my head, it was difficult to find a subject that I wanted to explore in depth. I visited the happy face a lot and used Felix the cat quite a bit. It’s like I wanted to find something a little bit more original that I could create. Allowing myself to be influenced and not trying to block the influence. What came out of that was these really weird ducks, then using the playboy bunny and turning it sideways and turning it into a duck with a big bill instead of a rabbit.
A big ol’ bill.
Lei Lei, the gallery manager at Muddgutts posted a lot of about the show during its run. Somebody had left a comment like “I cannot unsee that duck”. They said “I cannot unsee that weird parrot.” That’s the same way I feel every time I see a playboy bunny, I just think of a duck looking up in the air. Taking that influence from contemporary or modern art and just allowing the folk element and the element of east LA prison art and cholo art. Allowing it all to mix and not caring what it’s really referencing. Just seeing what happens when you paint.
As I’m starting to do these interviews for the COLLINS site, I find it interesting to search for a connection between art and design. Much as I mentioned Deborah Sussman’s indigenous culture reference reminds me of yours. I’m sure you find this in tattooing as well…
Exactly. I get a lot of pleasure out of making designs that reference to native and indigenous cultures. I’ll use a lot of the Polynesian and South Pacific references when I’m tattooing a black and white 50% checker pattern. A lot of the indigenous cultures were doing tattoos and had tattoos. I still reference a lot of the Mayan paintings– just the design. It has that folky quirkiness to it, but it’s very easy to see what it is and understand that it’s exaggerated. It adds to the mystique of it.
It’s easy to be influenced by pattern work and indigenous culture because the simplicity of it, to me, is what’s catchy. Take Melissa Cody; the reason that her textile work looks so good, even in abstract form, is because it’s so simple. The patterns are repetitive and beautiful. Even in her abstract contemporary form, it’s still easy to see that it’s a past, present, future look at textile design. The same goes for tattooing. Taking these Polynesian designs, these Zuni or Pueblo Indian style designs and just making them new again or giving them a new table to sit at. During the 90s and the late 80s and 90s and tattooing, there was a lot of fine line color biker tattooing going on. I think a lot of the images got played out in tattooing.
I think a lot of people didn’t appreciate a dream catcher tattoo or they thought tribal was “not cool” or “bros” got tribal. There’s some truth to that. There’s a certain type of tribal.
Wait, I’ve never heard this perspective before. Tribal at one point, and forgive my ignorance, was a meritable….
What’s strange about the tribal phenomenon is that the very beginning of it started in the UK and was for the gay culture, the leather culture, the fetish culture…. They were also the people that were getting piercings in the late 70s and 80s. They were also getting huge patches of black on their arm. They were revisiting these Polynesian designs but in heavy black bodysuits. Alex Binnie and Curly were two people that were quite innovative with tribal. Genesis P-Orridge can reference that because she was getting tattooed by this guy called Mr. Sebastian.
He was doing free form tattooing, basically just going in free handing, but in an abstract form. You either love it because it’s conceptual or you hate it because it’s conceptual. Back in that time, he did some genital piercing and was taken to court. It was like masochistic, bodily harm to another or something like that, something crazy. He went to jail. It started in this fetish culture, underground culture but in the states, it took a different form.
It had a native influence but the shapes were totally different and the people that were getting them were different. Bikers were getting it, the people that would go to the gym, body builders. You would see a lot of tribal on body builders. There was a couple of pro wrestlers like Goldberg.
I remember. Steve Austin I think.
Yeah Steve Austin, Stone Cold, he had a big arm band. People would come in and they’d be like “I want the Goldberg tribal” and “I want the Austin 3:16 tribal.” It has these very pointy shapes. It’s very recognizable when somebody says tribal. When I think of tribal, I refer to the Borneo designs. You hear Borneo headhunters but if you actually look at pictures of them, they covered in tattoos. The work is very symmetrical and very beautiful but they’re all just done with– imagine a heavy paintbrush with a perpendicular off of the end, like a small blade probably made out of bone.
Then they’re just tapping it in. It looks pretty brutal– all of the photos you see are people writhing in pain. You never really see people just chilling and getting Polynesian or Borneo tattoos. They’re the most OG hood tattoos ever though. They’re really hand poked in the jungle. It’s like these symmetrical lotus or rose shapes, but they’re solid black or have big stripes down the neck, on the throat and down the chest. There’s been a newer revival of that where people are getting a lot of South Pacific, Polynesian, Borneo, Zuni and Pueblo style black and white designs. They still stand the test of time and they just look so good. It’s nice to put in at least an honest day of work trying to bring back some really beautiful designs that may have gotten put to the side in the 90s during the heavy biker tattoo phase.
The dreamcatcher, the Indian profile, or the eagle flying—if you can see it on a t-shirt, you can imagine it as a 90s biker tattoo. I like being able to bring it back in a more serious context. Presenting it in a way where anybody nowadays can recognize and appreciate it, and it’s not like “oh man, dream catcher?”
Have you ever tattooed a dream catcher on somebody?
Yeah, at least a dozen. They’re really serious too. They don’t look like corny dreamcatchers.
What do you put in your dreamcatchers?
For one of them, I put a hanging leather pouch. I put another smaller dream catcher hanging from it and it had a Buddha eye within.
This girl Margaux, she plays violin. Her and her friend Charly, they go by Chargaux. They’re one violin, one cello and they’re on the new Schoolboy Q record. I’ve been tattooing both of them and for Margaux, I just did two patches of triangles down her wrist. It’s really simple but it will stand the test of time forever. It’s not stylized. It’s just simple, 50% black and white, sharp lines. Nothing special but it will last forever.
The last tattoo I got is on my forearm and it’s the name of an old guru from India…
Why the old guru in India?
It’s somebody I’ve been able to get some teachings from and getting a fresh perspective of just what’s going on. It’s a crazy story but that’s as much as I could touch on that.
Thank you.
One of the bigger influences on the recent paintings was recently sitting in a ceremony with a shaman and just realizing that I had a lot of letting go to do. It was more worth it to be me and all the shapes. Even artistically, if that meant drawing silly ducks, drawing what comes to mind and not drawing for anybody; just doing it and enjoying it. It’s hard to not reference ceremony and the things coming away from that. Just a new outlook of how real to be with your art and how real to be with you. I’m at a loss for words for how inspirational it was but it definitely gave me a new appreciation for work that I was able to create and not focusing on references from photos.
I needed to explore what was in my head and not what I could take a photo of. Just to add a little bit more heart in it. It was probably 5 years ago now that the first ceremony I sat in happened. If you look back, you can see the immediate creative twist right around then. A definite realignment and keeping it real.
Keeping it REALigned.
Keeping it realigned.
The biggest thing I’ve gotten out of ceremonies was the sense that everybody is one and when you’re in the other dimension, you can see everybody and feel them. It’s energies, colors and light and it’s heartbreaking. As I come out of those experiences, I end up manifesting it into reality. When I’m working, I can bring two-dozen people together on one vision.
That’s a really great quality because you’ll do a sharing circle type of thing where anybody that wants to talk about the ceremony experience can speak about it. You hear some wildly different experiences. They’ll be having a difficult time integrating what they experienced and then “now what do I do…”, “how do I apply this newfound self-love, this newfound self-empowerment…” where you feel like I can do all of this—it’s me.
“I can do this”, but some people have a hard time integrating. They’re just like “wow, I have this experience where I felt like I learned so much and I know so much more but I’m still working the same job and I’m still in this shitty apartment.” I was thinking about people that don’t have a creative output, whether it be music or art or film or photos or anything to express themselves artistically. I wonder how difficult it is to integrate something that’s such a visual—an unknown or foreign experience. For me, I can reference things in drawings or I can paint something that I saw. If you don’t have a creative output, I wonder how you just integrate afterwards and maybe express yourself. You’re just in your head and you don’t have a form of expression.
I feel like if you’re going to get into that kind of thing, you do have some type of interest. You’d be interested enough to go check out something like that.
I’m sure there’s cases where somebody is really falling off their head and they use it as a healing method or a way to reset their system and not exhibit toxic behavior.
You come away with so much self-love, that a lot of people can really make big decision changes in their life, whether its addiction, or jealousy, or possessiveness. I was able to conquer a lot of emotions. You’re forced to deal with yourself and when you’re just left with yourself, you tend to bring up themes that you should deal with. It’s hard to run away when you’re sitting there on a journey through your life and through your past years.
I found that it brought themes up chronologically and things that were most important for me to handle and get past were things that I immediately was made to deal with. My first experience, I had to deal with the passing of my grandmother. I believe that ceremony took place even to the day that she passed. I had a really hard time towards the end of the ceremony. I had this really amazing connection, visitation, thought process with her. I was in tears and I listened to her speaking. She was like “what’s your problem?” It’s like my Italian grandmother. I was like “just having a difficult time after your passing” and she was like “I’m still here; it’s not different.”
It was this big realization that any member of my family, future or present—I’m the current representation of them. I’m already with them. They are with me. It was this big epiphany. I like learning through experience, not through a doctrine.
The first experience was so profound. It was like wow, I was excited for the wrong reasons and I was nervous for the wrong reasons. I was totally bitch slapped by the universe—just put in check and I felt like I was washed away of my sins. Just like a fresh start.
Fresh appreciation for the possibility of living on planet Earth. It’s a pretty badass planet. I got more connected to planet Earth because I was a stargazer for a long time and enjoyed keeping track of the planets. I was like wait a minute, I live on a badass planet.
Earth is so dope.
That’s when Brook and I really started getting the travel bug. Once a year we started doing these trips to Peru or Guatemala. We drove across the Yucatan, drove through central Mexico and the desert. It was sick—just all of the temples, like Palenque and Chichen Itza, we went to as many as we could. The desert trip was the one I referenced earlier.
There’s one other thing I want to speak about now that you’ve said all of that—something I’ve developed over the years through my own exploration of alternate dimensions and what have you. I want to spin hate into “likes.”
“I want to spin hate into likes.”
It is so easy to be a hater. It is the easiest thing.
Way easier to be a hater.
It is the easiest thing in the entire world.
It’s the most basic…
Endlessly basic. I bring this up, because it’s conversely hard to be a lover. Sometimes it’s an immense challenge in life to find something you love about something you would otherwise hate or “hate on” or not “check out.” Of course you’ll never lose your spark or your ability to spot what doesn’t suit your aesthetic, but I’ve started to look at everything and say “it’s a miracle.” Look at lights for example—everything that goes into a light is insane. If you really break it down, there’s a bulb and a filament that had to be developed by Tesla, or Edison, depending on your side in the history of electricity.
That’s just one thing and that evolves for 200 and some odd years. The base of this fixture, the way it sticks up… The electrician came to the house to make sure it turned bright for you and then this particular bulb was developed over time to have cleaner, more efficient, longer lasting light. There’s a guy who checks your meter and it just goes on and on and on. If you really think about everything that happens in life, if you just take a moment, realize that every object in front of you is the direct result of somebody’s line of work and the series of evolutions that brought them there. How did they get here? What was the process that got them to you at that moment?
It’s a nice way to reexamine your life and be inspired in new ways.
It’s much easier to be a hater 100%. Even two or three years ago I was much more of a hater about other people’s work and worrying about if people were copying my work.
That final release was that moment when you really don’t care what people are thinking about you. At the same time, being positive and reaching out, meeting with, and working with new people. The biggest thing for me in the past has just been collaborating with people and just asking if they’re interested. The worst they can say is no. With each new person that you collaborate with, that’s a new circle from their side; that now sees your work— a way for each person to reach outside of their circle. There are a lot of beneficial parties, and the end product of the collaboration is always interesting.
That’s definitely been one of the biggest influences. Being afraid of rejection or being afraid of somebody saying "no"– people say "no" all the time. That doesn’t change where I’m at.
Not at all, it never does. I don’t know if we touched on this last time, but I remember talking about throwing things away and saying how it’s okay. Some things just don’t work. It’s fine. That must be a tremendous release, because you also work as a tattoo artist and can’t throw things away.
You can’t throw those away. Maybe that is why I get such a kick out of reusing paintings or painting over something. In this last show, I wrapped a panel that I had already painted in 2012 with another painting of top of it. I didn’t make any mention of it. If somebody bought that, they got two paintings and they didn’t know it. I don’t want somebody to stretch it and put it on another one and have two. That’s just part of the thing. This old piece now created this new piece. Now you have to live with it, but there’s a painting you can’t see. I signed it 2012 and 2014 on the back of the panel.
Boss.
I was talking to Kevin Lips recently and he was saying that he just did a big studio purge. Kevin is a prolific contemporary artist. Any one of these days, his work is going to blow up. Get one while you can. Anytime I go over there, I’m inspired. He’s got 80 paintings up on the wall, a ridiculous amount. Anybody can walk in there no matter how prolific they are and just realize how much work he’s putting in. He said “I just did a big studio purge and I threw out 40 drawings.” He said they had to go. He said they were old, they were sitting there and every time he looked at them, they would spark an old something that he didn’t want to think about.
He just threw them away. Sure people would want them, whatever. He said it felt really good to trash them. 40 paintings, 40 drawings in frames that would look so dope in any gallery. Throw old work away, get inspired to make new work. I love that. The destruction is important.
Working in design and advertising, sometimes the best way to work, is to make tons of different work… because I can. As much as you mock things up, you’re working on software that makes it easy to communicate multiple ideas. If your idea is strong and you’re efficient, you can execute endlessly.
I was watching this documentary on the painter Gerhard Richter from Germany. He does these really bright, wild abstract squeegee paintings. They sell for millions of dollars. One of them sold at auction, it was Eric Clapton’s. Eric Clapton sold it for 30 million pounds. Now Richter is the artist that got the highest matched price at auction living currently.
He was saying that there was some critics bad mouthing his current work, “trying to take the easy way out”, and such. He said “I can do anything. I can do portraits or I can do abstract. I can do both. Why can’t I do both? I can do that too.” That sat really well. Any time I’ll think of what I want to do, or that I want to try doing a sculpture—why not? If you put restrictions on yourself, you’re like “I’m not a sculptor.” Why aren’t you? Try it. I could feel the same thing that the critics were saying but I think the transformation is so wild that it makes it just as cool.
I think you’ve tackled all the things I love talking about. Anything else?
Peace out. Holler at your boy. Find me at @danielalbrigo. No spaces.